Ethan and Ava (Lily and Billy ) Sledding!

When I saw Lauren Meader use this new set, Lily & Billy Winter Plate, from Pink Cat Studio, I knew immediately that I wanted it. It fits my kiddos perfectly and looks just like Ethan and Ava sledding in the snow. Isn't it adorable. I used the colors pink pirouette and bashful blue from SU. The ribbon is from Papertrey Ink. My snowflakes are punched with the Martha Stewart snowflake punch. The scallop punch is from SU. I added some "bling" with my dazzling diamonds. I can't seem to get enough of these lately. I also added a little more scallop to the edge with my fiskars edge punch.

This card is for my little girl, Ava, who is just 2 1/2 with a very "vibrant" personality. She's not looking forward to her Mommy and Daddy and brother leaving for Philadelphia this week so I made her this card. She loves my cards and loves to run around holding them. Ethan has his MIBG treatment this Thursday so we will be gone all week and Ava has to stay home with grandparents. She's getting too smart in her young age and knows all too well what is going on.

Yesterday was Ethan's benefit and it was just wonderful. There were over 1000 people there and it was just a very great day. It was more than I could have ever imagined. So many thank yous to our friends and family who made all of this happen. Ethan is doing great and had a wonderful time playing all day long yesterday. Here's a picture of him at the barn setup they had to take pictures yesterday. Isn't it adorable. I have to share one of Ava too as she is always helping me take pictures of my cards!

My posts will probably be few and far between with our trip to Philly this week. Have a great week! Thanks for checking in.

Oh.....one more thing, I've had a few requests asking where my jammies came from from Saturday's post and they came from Target! Boy do I wish we had a Target where we live!

Have a Hoot of a Day!

It's Lauren's Saturday Sketch time.......and my stamp area is all torn up! Everything is sitting in piles on my dining room table, so I went searching for everything last night so I could come up with something for today. My husband is making my stamp area more open so he had me move everything out. It's a fairly cheap solution to making my area seem so much bigger. I'll have pictures once it is finished.......which could be a while!

My inspiration for this was Lauren's sketch and my daughter's pajamas.......take a look at the picture and you'll see. Thanks for looking!

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Be sure to check out the rest of the team too and don't miss my post below with my Christmas card!

Tamara Harder http://tamarastamps.blogspot.com/
Maria Levine http://riacreations.blogspot.com/
Dawn Easton http://www.TreasureOilerDesignz.blogspot.com/
Kirsten Dubosque http://www.kirstendubosque.blogspot.com/
Kristy Vernon http://www.kvernon.blogspot.com/
Kim Gasper http://stampinintherain.blogspot.com/

MacKenzie Bruckler http://midnightscramper.blogspot.com/

Christmas 2008 and My Little Vanna!

My Christmas card is finally desinged and ready to be mass produced. That's what's going in my suitcase to Philly. I have played with this design over the past couple of months and finally got it just the way I wanted it. BELIEVE.....Our Journey Continues. It's not what I wanted our Christmas cards to be about this year, but this is where we are at!

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The card is all SU cardstock, chocolate chip, very vanilla, and my favorite, riding hood red. I printed the sentiment on my computer using text boxes and I embossed the background with my cuttlebug and the paisly template. My stars are made using the SU star punches. I punched out the small star out of the riding hood red and then covered with 2-way glue and dipped into dazzling diamonds. The chocolate chip ribbon is from SU too. My picture was taken in our yard with the kids riding on our minature burrow! Isn't is adorable. I've shared it before, but it is definitely worth sharing again. The baby is "Baby Jesus". I told the kids we were going to pretend that it was baby Jesus and that name has stuck and both Ethan and Ava fight over this baby constantly. I print all of my pictures through the online one hour at Wal-Mart....I've shopped around and I like their quality the best!

Here's my little "Vanna" showcasing my card for me! She always runs to the steps when she knows I'm going to be taking a picture and she wants her picture taken too. Now if I wanted to take her picture that would be a different story!

We're gearing up for a very busy weekend and next week. Ethan's benefit is on Sunday and then we fly to Philadelphia on Tuesday and will be there until probably Saturday or Sunday. You'll have to hop over to Carole Burage's Blog "Mother's Little Helper" Check out the story of how we met at the hospital.....it is definitely a small world.

Hoping to be back tomorrow morning with Lauren's sketch. Hope all of you have a great weekend......we're supposed to get snow showers tomorrow!

I almost forgot.....I won a contest from Lisa Johnson and Marvy Punches. My Mom called and said that she saw I won.....and I didn't even know it yet! I get 5 of the Marvy scallop punches....isn't that cool. I'm very excited and want to thank Lisa and Marvy...they made my day!!!

It feels like WINTER!

I'm back. We spent the weekend in the hospital and got back on Sunday evening. What a great way to spend the weekend! It could have been worse. Ethan was feeling great by Friday afternoon, so I'm glad he didn't feel bad while we were there. He's on an antibiotic given intravenously through his port once a day over a 1/2 hour, so not too bad. It's been a crazy week, but that's life. Monday was a day full of medical stuff and by the afternoon I was just fit to be tied! I needed a break and I actually got one yesterday. I went shopping!!! Oh what shopping can do for a girl!!! I even got an early Christmas present from my Mom.....Thanks Mom! It's a craft wall oraganizer and it is going to work perfectly to house my ribbons, stamp pads, and several embellishements. I'll have to take a picture of everything once I get it all up and organized. I'm very excited!

Tonight I have stamp club so I thought I would take a quick picture of the cards we are making. They are SUPER SIMPLE and are really elegant looking too. I used Lovely as a Tree from SU! That is a very popular still, yet old SU set. I added some dazzling diamonds for some bling and tried it out in two color combinations. Always Artichoke/Mellow Moss/Very Vanilla and Bashful Blue/Night of Navy/Whisper White. Hope you enjoy! The kids are taking late naps which allowed me to get all of my stuff ready....I leave in 40 minutes, so I better wrap this up too! Papertrey is having their monthly release this Friday too!

We are off next week to Philly for another MIBG treatment for Ethan. We found out though that we don't leave until Tuesday, so that will give us a well needed day of rest on Monday after his benefit on Sunday. He's so excited about his cowboy party! I can't wait to see his face and watch him having fun!

Thanks for stopping by!

Our little Donkey!

Now this is a site you don't see everyday! The other day Ethan and Ava wanted to ride the "donkey", so my Dad helped me get Ranger saddled up so the kids could take a "ride" around the yard. Donkey just wanted to eat the clover in the yard and the kids were wanting to get going. So, they got bored and wanted to swing. Well, what do you do, you can't hold on to the donkey and push the kids, so I tied him up wo the swingset and everyone was happy!

Here are my two kiddos "trying" to ride the donkey, but as you can see in both pictures, donkey's head is down eating away! Wish we were home now riding, but unfortunately we are in the hospital. Ethan woke up with a fever this morning so we ended up spending the morning at the clinic getting labs drawn and we ultimately ended up here in St. Louis. Ava is with my parents. Hopefully we'll get to come home on Sunday, but we don't know anything yet.

Needless to say, I do not have a card to share for Lauren's sketch tomorrow. Maybe I'll get to do both next week. I'm sure I'll be ready for some stamping by then! On a very good note though, we had good results from Ethan's MIBG treatments. All of the lesions are gone excpet for a spot on his leg and that didn't light up as much as last time, so this means that the treatment is working and we will most likely proceed with another MIBG treatment in Philly in another week. We are very happy with the results and are hoping and praying that this next treatment will get Ethan back in remission again.

I'll leave with a photo from the professional photographer that took pictures from Ethan's Make-A-Wish. They are wonderful and I couldn't be happier with them. She gave us all the proofs, a small little booklet and the cd with all the pictures on it. Hope all of you have a great weekend. Thanks for checking in.

Lauren's Sketch and my little "Goblins"!

It's been a crazy week.....my computer went down "AGAIN"! I lost everything from Oct 4 until now!!! I got lucky and I had printed off Lauren's sketch for today so I could actually play along, I just had to find some time. This morning I'm having stamp camp at my house and I think I have "almost" everything ready! Here is my card using Lauren's sketch. You'll have to check out Lauren's previous entries for this week too.....she made me some stationary and it is just wonderful. She is so creative and kind. I can't wait to see it in person.....it is just perfect, pink and brown, 2 of my very favorite colors!

Now for my car. I used my Mom's stamp set, 2008 Holiday Tag Collection and Snowfall from PTI. The punched snowflakes are a from a Martha Stewart punch and the patterned paper is from SU. It's a very easy card and layout and super quick to make. The ribbon is the pure poppy polka dot from PTI and the real red and pure poppy are so close in color that you can mix and match very easily.

Yesterday was Halloween and my Ethan was dressed up all day long. Ava wasn't as excited as Ethan was.....he was disappointed that his costume was in the dryer and not dry when he woke up, but he put it on as soon as it was finished. The kids had a really good time. We made 2 stops, one at my parents and then at my husbands great grandmas. Everyone came to both places so it was nice and the kids didn't get tired of riding in the van. Here's a picture of my Super Hero and my "nice" little Witch!

Update on my son.....Ethan is doing great. He has no signs or symptoms of anything so that is wonderful. He's full of energy and just a joy to have around (most days!). We have scans this week so we would appreciate all the extra prayers we can get. He looks and feels good so we are praying that the scans are clear. What a roller coaster ride. I feel like for the last few weeks we actually got to get off of the ride though and just walk around the fair, but now we're hopping back on board.....I'll let you know when we get off again!!!

Thanks for stopping by! Hopefully I'll be back this week with more creations to share!

Stamp Camp Sneak Peak!

Here is one of my creations for stamp camp coming up this Saturday. I have them all designed, the paper and ribbon is here ready to cut, so I think we are set. It should be a good time. I'm really excited about using my pazzles to cut out some snowflakes......I'll share that card too. I actually have about 15 minutes this morning before I need to leave and relieve my husband at school. Ethan wanted him to come today for a little while, so Ava and I are at home. That is a rare occurence. She is playing with baby dolls and getting into all of my cards! She's coming with me to school today because after school the kids are heading to town with me to get flu shots! We'll see how that goes.



This card uses SU's stamp set "Pocket Sillouettes". The colors are ripe avacado and kraft from PTI. The ribbon is ripe avacado from PTI too. I used basic black from SU and embossed the kraft. Very simple card and I think this could be used for both a man or a woman.








This is a card using my new set from PTI called Snowfall. I love this set. I'm sure I'll be making more Christmas cards with this. The sentiment is from PTI's new set Silent Night. I used my Pazzles to cut out the snowflake. I used PTI's pure poppy for the ink and snowflake. One of the nice things about the Pazzles is that you can change your images and increase and decrease the size with very little work. I used a punch from Martha Stewart for the inside snowflake and added a little rhinestone for some bling. The outer edges of the snowflake were sprinkled with dazzling diamonds to give it some sparkle. It's a very pretty card in person....the picture doesn't really do it justice.


Hope you enjoy my new creations. I better get heading to school. Ethan just loves going. I don't know how much he is learning, but he has fun interacting with the other kids. Have a great Tuesday! Thanks for stopping by!